The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2015, and October 31, 2016 (see FAQ for exceptions), are automatically nominated for the 2016 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on November 3, 2016, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.

KIRKUS REVIEW

An 18-year-old Polish girl falls in
love, swoons over a first kiss, dreams of marriage—and, oh yes, we are in the
middle of the Holocaust.

Jenoff (The Ambassador’s Daughter,
2013, etc.) weaves a tale of fevered teenage love in a time of horrors in the
early 1940s, as the Nazis invade Poland and herd Jews into ghettos and
concentration camps. A prologue set in 2013, narrated by a resident of the
Westchester Senior Center, provides an intriguing setup. A woman and a
policeman visit the resident and ask if she came from a small Polish village.
Their purpose is unclear until they mention bones recently found there: “And we
think you might know something about them.” The book proceeds in the third
person, told from the points of view mostly of teenage Helena, who comes upon
an injured young Jewish-American soldier, and sometimes of her twin, Ruth, who
is not as adventurous as Helena but is very competitive with her. Their father
is dead, their mother is dying in a hospital, and they are raising their three
younger siblings amid danger and hardship. The romance between Helena and Sam,
the soldier, is often conveyed in overheated language that doesn’t sit well
with the era’s tragic events: “There had been an intensity to his embrace that
said he was barely able to contain himself, that he also wanted more.” Jenoff,
clearly on the side of tolerance, slips in a simplified historical framework
for the uninformed. But she also feeds stereotypes, having Helena note that Sam
has “a slight arch to his nose” and a dark complexion that “would make him
suspect as a Jew immediately.” Clichés also pop up during the increasingly
complex plot: “But even if they stood in place, the world around them would
not.”

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